Archive for June, 2014

The University of Virginia consistently has a high Black student graduation rate. But the university developed a strategy where graduation is the floor not the ceiling and this has resulted in significant improvement in the academic performance of the Black students who graduate.

Roderick L. Ireland is the first African American Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. He is leaving the bench in July and has accepted the position as Distinguished Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Northeastern University in Boston.

For Blacks with $10,000 or more of student loan debt, there is a 11 percent lower probability of home ownership. For Whites with student loan debt there is “no discernible association” between debt and home ownership.

A new study by researchers at Harvard Medical School and the Howard University College of Medicine finds that healthcare reform in Massachusetts, which has many similarities to the federal Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. Obamacare), has not reduced racial disparities in cardiovascular care.

Wilberforce University in Ohio has been issued a “show-cause order” that requires the institution to present its case as to why its accreditation should not be withdrawn. The university has until December 15 to respond to the accrediting agency.

The new bachelor’s degree program in information technology with an emphasis on mainframe systems will be the eighth undergraduate degree program offered by the university’s School of Technology. The new program will launch in 2015.

The accrediting agency found that the university was deficient in eight areas: financial resources, financial stability, control of finances, student financial aid, organizational structure, governance, qualified academic and administrative officers, and control of sponsored and external funds.

Taking on new administrative duties are Donna Polk at Bowie State University, Shelli Allen at East Central College in Missouri, Kedra Ishop at the University of Michigan, and Ron T. Coley at the University of California, Riverside.

The new online bachelor’s degree program is designed to attract nontraditional students, veterans, and working adults. Several concentrations will be offered including office administration, health care administration, legal office administration, and public service administration.

Dr. Mackey is a professor emeritus of literature at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He recently was named the winner of the $100,000 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize. In 2006, he won the National Book Award in the poetry category.

In 1970, seven artists painted a mural on a wall in the Ackerman Union on the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles. When the building was renovated in 1992, the mural was hidden behind a temporary wall. It has now been restored for public display.

The interdisciplinary program in critical race and ethnic studies is designed to help students develop a deep understanding of how race and other modalities of power have structured human life, both in the past and the present.

Dr. Claudius Mundoma is the director of the Physical Biochemistry Facility for the Institute of Molecular Biophysics at Florida State University. He has been selected for a fellowship that helps African educational institutions with research collaborations, curriculum development, and training initiatives.

Reggie Robinson has been serving as a professor of law and the director of the Center of Law and Government at Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas. He is the former CEO of the Kansas Board of Regents.

Aycock Hall was named for Charles Brantley Aycock, who served as governor of North Carolina from 1901 to 1905. While Governor Aycock was a strong advocate for public education, he also was a staunch segregationist and led efforts to disenfranchise Black voters in the state.

In an open letter to President Obama, a group of 1,000 women of color state that “the crisis facing young boys of color should not come at the expense of girls who live in the same households, suffer in the same schools, and endure the same struggles.”

Roosevelt Sandy Gilliam Jr. was the former director of athletics at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore in Princess Anne and the former vice president for development and industrial relations at South Carolina State University in Orangeburg.

Danielle R. Holley-Walker was appointed dean of the School of Law at Howard University in Washington. D.C. She has been serving as associate dean and a professor of law at the University of South Carolina Law School.

Since August 2011, Dr. Sandra C. Garmon Bibb has been associate dean for faculty affairs at the Graduate School of Nursing of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland.

The assistant professor of public health at Texas A&M University, received the Outstanding Dissertation Award from AcademyHealth, the academic professional association for health services and health policy researchers.

From 2005 to 2009, 19 percent of all Ph.D.s awarded in chemistry at LSU were earned by African Americans. Blacks were less than 10 percent of the chemistry Ph.D. recipients at the other 49 leading chemistry departments in the nation.

Dr. Barnes joined the faculty at Jackson State in October 2013. Previously, she was interim associate dean of university studies and an associate professor at North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro.

The White professor claims that many White applicants were not seriously considered for employment because of their race and that faculty members and administrators had remarked that only African Americans were “suited” to teach at HBCUs.

Historically Black Paine College in Augusta, Georgia, has announced that as of July 1, the campus will become a smoke-free zone. Also, many measures have been taken to increase security after two shooting incidents that took place on campus in May.

At the historically Black educational institution in Mississippi, Donzell Lee was named interim provost and vice president for academic affairs and John Igwebuike was appointed interim associate vice president for academic affairs.

The new bachelor’s degree program in biomedical engineering will train students to develop the next generation of disease-fighting drugs, artificial organs, and medical imaging systems. The program will begin in the spring 2015 semester.

Kwame Anthony Appiah was named professor emeritus and Ruha Benjamin was appointed assistant professor of African American studies at Princeton University. Christopher Bonner is a new assistant professor of history at the University of Maryland.